Official Draft Lottery Thread: Gut Check

[Packfill]

Quote:

---

I don't think it discourages anything.

When the stakes are higher next year, let's see this discouragement in action.

Let's see how many starters for teams not making the playoffs are all the sudden on the bench with back spasms or a knee ache or an ingrown toenail or something or my favorite dnp-coaches decision.

They should have a dnp-GM decision...

If you don't think there's tanking, check the record of the Spurs before they got Duncan. They visible tanked and was rewarded for it.

---

I am sure San Antonio had David Robinson fake that injury . . .

[Wretch]

We'll get the #1 pick this year!!!

Fo -

Sheezy.

[Diesel]

I'm not talking about just Robinson.

Robinson didn't fake the injury, but he was able to come back before the season was over... sometime in Feb, and Popp said no.

Dominique was held out about the last 15 games.

Sean Elliot and Monty Williams both caught the bug..

I remember watching the spurs come out with Caddillac Anderson, Jamie Fieck, and Avery Johnson in those last days...

Nique and "Family man" Vernon Maxwell were sitting next to each other laughing on the bench. And you know Nique wasn't injured.

[Lascar78]

http://www.nba.com/hawks/news/2006_NBA_Lot...cts_052206.html

looks like the hawks put a page up

The Hawks have participated in the lottery ten times since it was introduced in 1985. With the NBA Draft Lottery scheduled for Tuesday, Hawks.com takes a look at the team's history in the event:

For this year's drawing, Atlanta has 137 chances out of 1000 probabilities (13.70%) to land the first pick, with a 14.16% chance on getting the second pick, a 14.48% chance on getting the third pick, an 8.51% chance for the fourth selection, a 32.34% shot at number five, a 15.55% chance for number six, and a 1.26% shot at seven. Atlanta can drop no lower than seventh.

Here are some other Lottery-related notes:

-The highest Atlanta finish in the lottery came last season, when the Hawks placed second in the process. Marvin Williams (recently named NBA second-team All-Rookie) from North Carolina was selected with that pick.

-Previous Hawks finishes are as follows: 1985 (5th), 1990 (11th), 1992 (10th), 2000 (6th), 2001 (3rd), 2002 (8th), 2003 (8th, pick awarded to Milwaukee), 2004 (6th), and 2005 (2nd);

The NBA Board of Governors approved a modification of the Lottery system in November of 1993 that, effective with the 1994 NBA Draft Lottery, increased the chances of the teams with the worst records in the league winning one of the top three picks in the draft while decreasing the lottery chances of the teams with the best records. The new system increased the chances of the team with the worst record drawing the first pick in the draft from 16.7 percent to 25 percent, while decreasing the chances of the team with the best record among lottery teams from 1.5 percent to 0.5 percent.

Under the system, 14 ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 are placed in a drum. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Prior to the Lottery, 1,000 combinations are assigned to the Lottery teams based on their order of finish during the regular season. Four balls are drawn to the top to determine a four-digit combination. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the number one pick. The four balls are placed back in the drum and the process is repeated to determine the number two and three picks;

Following are the 13 teams in 2005 NBA Draft Lottery who did not qualify for the NBA Playoffs 2005. Each team will be assigned a certain number of combinations out of 1,000. The third column below lists the number of combinations each team will have in the NBA Draft Lottery. The three columns on the right list the percent chances that teams have at getting one of the top three picks.

2006 NBA Draft Lottery Probabilities: (click to enlarge)

The event will be televised on ESPN at 7:30 ET, prior to coverage of the Eastern Conference final game, from Secaucus, NJ and the NBA Entertainment Studios. Hawks co-owner Ed Peskowitz will represent the organization on the podium.

The 2006 NBA Draft is set for Wednesday, June 28 from the Theater in Madison Square Garden, and it will also be televised by ESPN.

Looks like they weren't satisfied with BK's lottery luck! Will a new representative help things?

[Johnnybravo4]

How about JJ?

[mudderfudder77]

My guess?

1. Golden State

2. Portland

3. Chicago /from NY

4. Charlotte

5. Atlanta

[RAHMOR]

Atlanta will get the number one pick. I had a dream about it.

[Lascar78]

I wonder who went back to watch the actual lottery. Sekou again?

I wonder what time they're doing the actual lottery too. Last year it was at 7:30, announced at 9 or 9:30 I believe. So this year it's probably held at 5:30 or so.

For those who haven't seen it, this was a good article from last year

Let the Ping-Pong Balls Fall

By Jeff Dengate

SECAUCUS, N.J., May 24 – Conference Room 3A: Better known to conspiracy theorists as professional basketball's own Grassy Knoll. Known in basketball circles as the place where the ping-pong balls bounce.

Every spring, NBA fans sound off about their teams “getting robbed” or crying "fix" when their teams slide in the order of selection. To debunk any such claims, the NBA welcomes a select handful of media members to witness the actual lottery drawing being conducted, the results of which are broadcast around the world.

What goes on behind the closed doors? I was one of the fortunate few to be invited to watch the winning combination drawn, determining the top three picks in the 2005 NBA Draft.

Join me as I recall the experience.

First, a quick history lesson for those unfamiliar with how the lottery came to be. Gone are the days of coin flips and territorial picks, cast aside in favor of a weighted system of 14 ping-pong balls with 1,001 possible outcomes.

In the NBA’s infancy, teams could forfeit their first-round pick and select a player from their immediate geographical area – commonly known as a “territorial pick”. One such pick, Holy Cross’ Tom Heinsohn, was taken by the Celtics in 1956, a team he helped lead to eight NBA Championships during his nine-year career.

The system was revamped in 1966, leading to a coin toss between the last place finisher in each of the NBA’s two divisions to determine who would get the first overall pick. Still short of perfect, the system witnessed a young Magic Johnson as the steal of the 1979 Draft for the Los Angeles Lakers. In that draft, the Chicago Bulls had called “heads,” the result being “tails,” and the first pick was awarded to the New Orleans Jazz. The Jazz, however, owed the Lakers three draft picks, one of them being – you guessed it – one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History.

An ever evolving process, the lottery now determines only the top three selections, with the remaining teams picking in inverse order of their regular season record. The 14 certified, weighed and sized white balls, numbered one through 14, are placed in a drum similar to those used in state lottery contests. Four balls are drawn, comprising the winning combination, without regard to their order of selection.

But we’re not in school, so enough with the history; let’s go behind the locked doors.

To gain access to conference room 3A, one must first surrender all forms of communication with the outside world and take a vow of secrecy. All right, the truth is you’re simply locked inside the conference room until the No. 1 pick has been revealed to the rest of the world, preventing you from playing the role of spoiler.

A sign on the outside of the entrance offers a stern warning: NO ADMITTANCE AFTER 7:10 P.M.

What it should have read is: “Please visit the restroom now because it’ll be a long time until we let you out.” A fair enough warning for those soon-to-be detained.

Once inside, placards reserved spaces at the assembled tables for the 11 team representatives in attendance – the Lakers and Timberwolves only sent an on-stage participant while Cleveland was not a participant in this year’s lottery, having given their first-round pick to the Bobcats via Phoenix, in exchange for selecting Jahidi White in last summer’s expansion draft.

I take my seat alongside Sekou Smith (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), John Reid (New Orleans Times-Picayune) and David Scott (Charlotte Observer) – writers covering the three teams with the best shot at winning the lottery.

Shortly before 7:00 p.m. ET, the room became crowded as all on-stage and lottery-room participants filed in for roll call and a brief summary of the lottery rules.

Jamin Dershowitz, the NBA’s general counsel, ran through the process for all in attendance. Highlights among the rules include:

* The 14 ping-pong balls are deposited into the machine and allowed to tumble for exactly 20 seconds, at which point the first ball will be extracted. Subsequent balls will be withdrawn every 10 seconds repeatedly until four balls have been removed.

* For the purposes of the lottery, the order the balls are drawn has no bearing on the result, thus 1, 2, 3, 4 is the exact same as 4, 3, 2, 1.

* In the event the machine breaks down, there is a second machine in an adjacent room. In the event both machines break down, there is a power failure or another unforeseeable event, the balls will be drawn manually from a basketball which has been lopped in half. Thankfully, none of these disaster scenarios will be necessary tonight.

* If more than one ball pops out of the machine at any one time, only the first ball will be official and any others will be returned to the tumbler.

At this point, the on-stage participants – those whose reactions you watched on ESPN’s telecast – were excused and the doors were locked. Two hours later, they would learn the outcome at the same time as the television audience.

Meanwhile, for those of us left inside the conference room, it was time to determine the draft order.

The ping-pong balls made their first appearance of the evening just past 7 p.m. as they were removed from their protective case and stacked in the machine’s chute in sequential order. The tension in the room mounted as Executive Vice President of Legal & Business Affairs, Joel Litvin, removed the balls one-by-one, held each up for the assembly to see, called out its number and placed it in the chute.

Then it's time to let the balls drop.

Mike Kordonsky, the event’s official timer in charge of calling shot-clock violations on the ping-pong balls, turned his back on the proceedings, remaining an impartial participant in the lottery process. Standing, eyes trained on the stopwatch in his right hand, Kordonsky’s focus never wavered from the timing device as he raised his left hand at the 20 second mark and each successive 10-second interval.

The first ball squirted out the top of the cylindrical machine: 5.

The No. 5 ball was held up and announced to all in attendance.

Ball two: 10.

As each ball is withdrawn, Dershowitz repositions himself along the team-look-up tables, which are posterboard sized signs with all the possible combinations lined along one wall of the room, hovering in the general vicinity of a possible winner. How quickly his position changes.

With a quick rattle and a dull thud, the third ball rises from the machine: 7.

The event, at this point, is a bit pedestrian because few people – even the most experienced lottery participants – can calculate, on-the-fly, those teams which have been eliminated from contention and which team needs what ball to surface to get the first pick. We’ll look back at those after we see the final ball and the winner of the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NBA Draft.

Ball four … drumroll please: 14. The winning combination: 5—7—10—14.

“Milwaukee,” Dershowitz rings out.

“Whoo, unbelievable!” rejoins Bucks Director of Community Relations, Skip Robinson.

The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the odds, despite holding only 63 of a possible 1000 combinations, and claimed the first overall pick in the NBA Draft for the first time since taking Glenn Robinson in 1994.

The Bucks, however, had already beaten the odds by the time the first three balls – 5, 7 and 10 – were drawn. Any ball numbered eight or higher (six of the remaining 11 balls) would make the Bucks the cream of the crop. Anything six or lower and the pick would have gone to Atlanta (1), New Orleans (2), Charlotte (3), Utah (4) or Portland (6).

There was very little time for those not loyal cheeseheads to react, however, as the balls were immediately returned to the machine and cycled again to bring forth the winner of the second pick in the draft.

The next combination brought forth: 1—5—7—14. The Atlanta Hawks claimed the second overall pick in the NBA Draft – down one spot from their regular season finish.

The process is repeated for the third pick, but one of Atlanta’s 250 combinations surface again. The balls are returned to the tumbler and redrawn, similar to what would have happened in the event the 1,001st combination, 11—12—13—14, not assigned to a team, had surfaced.

The fourth drawing produces the third and final winning combination: 4—10—12—14. The Portland Trail Blazers join Milwaukee and Atlanta in the win-place-show grouping, despite holding only a 10.64 percent chance of winning the third pick.

And with that, the excitement is over. All that remains are congratulations to the winners, the No. 1 ping-pong ball as a souvenir for Skip Robinson and a table of food to tide us all over until Bucks General Manager Larry Harris looked around the NBA Entertainment studio two hours later as if to say, “Me? We won?”

For Robinson, watching the announcement a second time, the thrill remains. “It’s still exciting.”

[Dragitoff]

I did the ESPN mock draft lottery and on about the 6th time, the Hawks got the top pick. You know who they picked? Bargnani!

[AHF]

Quote:

---

I did the ESPN mock draft lottery and on about the 6th time, the Hawks got the top pick. You know who they picked? Bargnani!

---

Chad Ford doesn't have a single team taking Aldridge #1 overall. He has everyone taking Thomas or Bargnani (about evenly split) except for Utah who he thinks would take Roy #1 overall and Seattle and Orlando who he predicts would take Morrison.

[Dragitoff]

I'm kinda' shocked that he thinks so highly of Thomas and Bargnani and so poorly of Aldridge. I'm kinda' split personally on the best player of the 3, but who here really beleives BK would take Bargnani over Aldridge if he had the chance? No smart answers please, I'm serious.

[AHF]

Quote:

---

I'm kinda' shocked that he thinks so highly of Thomas and Bargnani and so poorly of Aldridge. I'm kinda' split personally on the best player of the 3, but who here really beleives BK would take Bargnani over Aldridge if he had the chance? No smart answers please, I'm serious.

---

Diesel has a thread on this and a number of people took Bargnani as their prediction for BK's pick with the #1 overall.

[Dragitoff]

Yeah, I voted on that, and while I still beleive Bargnani may be the most talented guy in the draft, I think Aldridge is the safer pick.......wait a minute, I just dismissed my own theory on why BK would pick Aldridge over Bargnani. I'm changing my pick. Bargnani or bust....... lol.

[DrReality]

Gotta hunch we land 3rd.

[Traceman]

We will finally get lucky and land the #1 pick in the draft where there is no OBVIOUSLY significant difference in talent between picks #1 and #6. Think about it, if needs were not an issue, is there a signifcant difference in the talent between any of the following:

Aldridge

Bargnani

Thomas

Roy

Morrison

Gay

In addition, if we get the #1 pick, it will likely be the wrong pick and whoever goes #2 will likely be a HOFer.

Still, I hope we get #1. It will nice to get to choose our fate rather than depend on others.

[tmac13]

3rd, 5th, or 6th

[sick_five]

I hope Atlanta will get the #1 just so that it will give them the options that the first overall has. In a year like this, I would trade down and add another pick/player, then try tp move up from the 2nd round.

Ideally, I'd like a combo of Roy/Brewer and O'Bryant.

[Yeti]

"Is there a signifcant difference in the talent between any of the following:

Aldridge

Bargnani

Thomas

Roy

Morrison

Gay"

I agree with the first five - but not Gay. He's the Tinman - doesn't have a heart.

If we get any of those five or Splitter or Sene, I'll be happy.

[Lascar78]

Ummmm ... congrats that predicted our move down, as it was tied for the most likely outcome predicted by us.

*Sigh*

PREPARE YOUR TOP 5's!